


Mutual Misunderstanding after the Fact

by mcgarrygirl78



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Angst, Drama, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-10
Updated: 2016-01-10
Packaged: 2018-05-12 22:21:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5682940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mcgarrygirl78/pseuds/mcgarrygirl78
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He was still holding her hands, still waiting for her to give just a little indication of how things went so wrong that night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mutual Misunderstanding after the Fact

**Author's Note:**

> In the fic And Then there were Four…Possibly, I mentioned a time when Olivia and Rafael had a physically violent confrontation. Some readers wanted to know about that time. I knew it was a sensitive subject to handle but felt I could write the story. I need to do right by these characters and hope that I have. The title comes from the Elton John song, Sacrifice.

He quickly walked down the hall and to the front door when he heard the banging. Living in a secure building meant uninvited guests were rarely a thing. It might be Alicia, his neighbor across the hall, and owner of the homicidal Lloyd. Barba looked out of the peephole and it wasn’t Alicia. He quickly unlocked and opened the door.

“How did you even manage to knock with both hands full?” he asked.

“I don't know. I've had a couple of drinks tonight but I'm not drunk.” Olivia said as she stepped over the threshold.

“Of course you're not. You wouldn’t be drunk carrying Noah around.”

“It was drizzling when we left the house if you can believe it, and then it just started to pour. Luckily I keep a little umbrella in Noah’s bag but it’s just for his head.”

“At least you're not soaked to the skin, and Noah is thankfully dry.” He took the toddler from her arms. “I’ll take him and put him down in the other room. He's barely conscious.”

“I'm just glad he's not super cranky.” Olivia said. “He hates being woken up; wouldn’t even let me put on his shoes. Charlie just let us up without calling…don’t be upset with him. I told him that you were expecting us and we were caught in the storm.”

“I'm not upset, it’s alright Liv. Slow down because you're talking a mile a minute. I'm going to put Noah down. You should go in the kitchen and put on a pot of coffee; you're shivering.”

“Is Noah OK?” she reached out to caress his hair.

“He's fine. Go, but give me the diaper bag.”

Rafael took Noah down the hall to the bedroom that had become his over the past six months. He got the toddler out of his jacket despite whiny protestations. The rain hadn’t affected him much but Rafael kept his socks on in case he caught a chill. Placing Noah in the crib, he immediately turned on the musical mobile above his head. It also made shapes of light on the ceiling. 

Tonight Noah didn’t care about any of that. Once he was on a comfortable, familiar surface, sleep took over once more. Rafael caressed his chubby cheek. Though he had nothing to do with it, he still felt guilty that Olivia brought him out in this weather. She always put Noah first so she must have had something really important to say. 

They hadn’t talked in four days and Rafael’s texts to her, six in total, went ignored. That’s what drove him crazy…the silent treatment. Fighting was one thing, all couples did, but when Olivia went quiet it was maddening. He was almost always the one to reach out, the one to smooth things over. Often it was Rafael’s fault; relationships were not his forte. 

Still he and Liv didn’t have many big fights. They were both mature and usually just came out and said what needed to be said. This had been a big fight. It had been loud and mean and violent. Rafael knew that Liv had it in her. He had it in him too. It was directly under the surface of their skin. When it exploded like a bomb, the tatters of their relationship were left in its wake.

“Do you want me to grab you a change of clothes or something?” Rafael slowly walked into the kitchen. His voice got there before he did. No sudden movements was probably the best way to go for now. “You probably shouldn’t be walking around in damp clothes.”

“I'm fine.”

“You're not fine Olivia, and there's nothing wrong with that. You're shivering. Please just go and change. You can grab whatever you want from the top drawer.”

“The coffee is on.” She brushed past him, gentler than the last time they were close.

“Yeah.” Rafael nodded. 

His stomach suddenly felt sick and he didn’t think he wanted any. The only reason he suggested it for Liv was because she was damp and clearly more intoxicated than she believed herself to be. Rafael poured himself the second scotch of the evening instead. It probably wasn’t the best idea but fuck it, he really was flying by the seat of his pants right now.

000

When Olivia returned, Rafael was sitting on the couch. He'd made her coffee just the way she liked it. He also made her two pieces of toast with butter and a little strawberry jam. Having food in her stomach might make some of the bad things a little bit better.

“I crossed a line.” She said as she sat down beside him. She took a long sip of coffee. “I crossed a big line with a million red flags and I'm not entirely sure if our relationship can come back from that.”

“Our relationship can come back from almost anything.” Rafael said.

“I see it all the time in my line of work. Women, and men, battered and bruised while their abusive partners tell them it’s never going to happen again. So often they go back, and it always happen again.”

“There's no reason to compare your moment of anger with the pattern of abusive relationships.”

“But I hurt you.”

“You punched me, and that behavior is unacceptable Liv. My behavior wasn’t glowing either…it was a bad situation all the way around. Neither one of us had a shining hour.”

“How do we do this?” she asked, wiping away her tears. “I don’t even know where to start.”

“We can start at the beginning.”

“I'm not sure that I can.” Liv shook her head.

“Do you trust me?” Rafael took both of her hands in his. Despite changing into warm clothes she was still trembling.

“Yeah.”

“Then hold on and talk to me, Liv. I'm not going to let go.”

_Pete Russert was a bad guy. He was a career criminal and an all-around piece of shit human being. Barely into his 40s and he'd already done time in Florida and Louisiana on sexual assault charges. He was a serial rapist who had gotten better with age and experience. Long ago he learned to stop leaving much evidence behind._

_There were five unsolved cases in the DC Corridor, three in Baltimore, 2 in Wilmington, 6 in Philly, and then 5 in New York City when he finally got on Manhattan SVU’s radar. There was no DNA and his victims had all been blitz attacked. Not a single one saw him coming. It was hard police work that got Russert in an interrogation room for the first time. Liv would never forget the smug look on his face when the lack of evidence meant that he wouldn’t be charged._

_She was sure that she would see him again. That meant that even more women would be traumatized by his acts. Two years ago he was back under arrest. Three women on the Lower East Side had been assaulted. This time there was a small drop of semen in one of the victim’s panties._

_Liv knew she had him…she wouldn’t even need his confession now. Russert didn’t ask for an attorney but invoked his right to remain silent. Liv and Fin went at him hard but the criminal had little to say. She watched him walk again when the semen came back belonging to the victim’s boyfriend. Liv could hardly control her anger as he walked out of the precinct again. She begged Barba to find something to hold him on but his cleanliness and M.O. made that an impossible task for the D.A.’s office._

_His prior bad acts couldn’t be held against him. Rafael wasn’t surprised when Liv transferred some of the anger she felt about Russert onto him for a little while…it was a hazard of the job. The friends made up in about a week and the friendship moved forward just as the world did. Four days ago, Dodds and Fin rearrested Pete Russert on suspicion of stalking, kidnapping, and possible custodial interference. The entire story was a wild ride from start to finish. Lieutenant Olivia Benson jumped waist deep into the cesspool._

_“Well, well, well, look who it is.” Russert smiled when he saw Benson standing in the doorway of her office. “How many balls did you have to saw off to finally get a space with a window? You didn’t have to send your goons to arrest me. Why don’t you just ask me out like a regular woman?”_

_“Put him in Interrogation 3.” Liv said, ignoring his overtures. “I’ll be conducting the interview.”_

_“Do you think that’s the best idea, Lieutenant?” Dodds asked in a low voice as Fin walked away with Russert. “You two have a lengthy and troubled history.”_

_“I'm well aware of our history, Sergeant, but thank you. Fin will back me up and you'll get Barba down here. I know it’s late but we need him. Time isn't on our side.”_

_“I think Carisi should go in and not Fin.” Dodds said. “Russert has shut down on the two of you before and he’ll do it again. Carisi can play the sympathetic white guy with a female boss card.”_

_“That’s actually a good idea.” Liv said. “Call Barba.”_

_“You got it.” Dodds nodded._

_“Carisi, you're with me. Terrence has been missing for seven hours and its time to get some answers.”_

_By the time Barba got from his condo to the police station, the situation had gone from bad to four alarm fucked. Liv was clearly reaching her breaking point in the interrogation room. No one seemed to think it might be better to end the interview._

_“This is bad.” Rafael sighed as he looked through the two way mirror. “Russert has her right where he wants her and has given up nothing.”_

_“Carisi is doing a nice balance.” Fin said._

_“Carisi is doing nothing. Are we watching the same interview, Detective? Russert is a sociopath, he could give a damn about the tired good cop/bad cop routine. He’ll keep ratcheting up the heat until Liv pops and he walks on a tech.”_

_“Not going to happen.” Fin shook his head. “She's got this.”_

_She did not have this. It wasn’t as if Olivia hadn’t gone too far with suspects in her time. She pushed the boundaries of allowable physical and mental intimidation. There was a time or two that she left those boundaries in the rearview mirror._

_That kind of behavior incensed Barba. He didn’t like cops who violated people’s rights. He didn’t want to hear about being passionate for the victims. No one would win if bad guys stayed on the streets because cops couldn’t keep their hands to themselves or their lies straight. This needed to end._

_“Lieutenant, a word.” Rafael walked into the interrogation room without knocking._

_“Now? I'm a little busy at the moment.”_

_“I need you to leave this interrogation room.”_

_“That’s funny, I was just thinking the same thing about you. We have a job to do, Counselor, and you're interrupting it.”_

_“This interview is over. Detective Carisi, you can go. Lieutenant, I’d like to speak privately please.”_

_“If you two want the room, I can go too.” Russert said. He leaned back some in his chair and winked at her._

_“Shut the hell up.” Liv said. “This is my interview and I'm telling you to leave right now ADA Barba.”_

_“I'm not going until you do.”_

_“Do you work for this scumbag or the people?”_

_Rafael didn’t answer, he just stood there. He stood there with his back straight and prepared to take the heat that was surely coming. Liv was furious, he felt it coming off of her like waves. Neither one of them moved for quite some time but the Lieutenant blinked first. She came stalking toward him, bumping him hard as she walked out of the room. Barba followed and closed the door behind him._

_“How dare you?” she turned and glared at him. “Don’t you ever come into my house and disrespect me in front of a suspect. Are you out of your damn mind?”_

_“Mr. Russert has rights, Lieutenant.” Rafael said. “You violate them and he walks.”_

_“A child is missing, I don’t give a damn about his rights. He's a rapist and a kidnapper…it’s time for this to end.”_

_“So what vital information has he given you about Terrence’s disappearance?”_

_“He wasn’t talking yet but…”_

_“And he isn’t going to.” Rafael shook his head. “He's playing you, Liv. You were about to explode in there and it showed.”_

_“Don’t tell me how to do my job. If you were doing yours we wouldn’t even be in this. He would've been sent to prison two years ago.”_

_“I'm not going to dignify that with a response. This is not how we do it.”_

_“You're not a cop last time I checked, Counselor. I surely didn’t call you here for anything like this. Do you want to tell Tamika Pritchard that the man who raped her, stalked her, and probably stole her son is going to once again walk off into the sunset?”_

_“I'd rather do that then watch him walk out of the courtroom because the NYPD abused their power for a bad confession or worse. She's been through enough. A lot of women in this city have been through enough. I want to find her son too. This isn't the right way.”_

_“I don’t have time for this.” Liv went to walk past him. “We’re wasting precious time because you don’t want to hurt the feelings of the scum of the earth.”_

_“You're not going back into that room.” Rafael took hold of her wrist._

_“Get your hands off me.”_

_“You're highly charged, emotional…it’s only going to go from bad to worse. Even a first year public defender can put two and two together and get mud pies. This is the third time in five years that Russert has been under your hot lights. Not a single charge has been filed. Its bordering on harassment no matter how justified.”_

_“Get off me.” Liv spoke through clenched teeth._

_“I'm not.” Rafael spoke in a low tone and shook his head. “You're going to ruin this case and your career. Have you really spent nearly the past two decades fighting to get where you are to destroy it in an instant? You'll be no closer to Terrence Pritchard. This is a set up.”_

_“Dammit!”_

_Liv went to snatch her hand away but Rafael wouldn’t let her. He held tight, pushing himself toward her and picking her up around her waist. With a strength he barely knew he had, the ADA lifted her over his shoulder and carried her the fifteen or so feet from the precinct floor into her office. He closed the door with his foot. After depositing her by the desk, Rafael stood in the middle of the floor. He was a barrier between Olivia and the door._

_“You son of a bitch!” Olivia exclaimed._

_“Olivia, this…”_

_“You son of a bitch!”_

_It happened so fast that he barely saw it coming. Still, he saw it. Rafael thought to duck or shuffle or dodge and in the end was barely able to move an inch. Liv’s fist connected with his cheekbone right under his eye causing him to stumble backward. There was a lot of force behind the blow and the pain moved across his face like a hot poker. It wasn’t the hardest hit he had in his life but it was the hardest in some time. For a moment Rafael was sure he was blind in his eye though she hadn’t hit him there._

_“Did that make you feel better?” he asked, his hand on his cheek. It was really hard not to cry but he managed to hold it back. The level of ouch he was feeling at the moment was high. “Did you get out some of the rage you wanted to unleash on Russert?”_

_“Don’t you ever put your hands on me again, you get the hell out of my office!” she pointed at him._

_“If I leave and you go back in there, we are through.”_

_“We’re already through. Get out!”_

_Rafael walked backwards toward the door. Only an idiot turned his back on someone whose anger hadn’t dissipated after a punch. He wanted to say something but there was nothing left to say. Getting the shit beat out of him for being right wasn’t on Rafael’s list of things to do tonight. Maybe the regret and shame would come later but he wasn’t sticking around for it._

_Liv was full of rage, full of something he'd never seen before though he'd seen her pissed off over the years. He couldn’t do anything but make it worse now. How could it get any worse? Walking through that precinct he kept his back straight and his chin up. Everyone was looking at him, people out on the street had surely heard the fight. Rafael walked to the elevator and hoped he didn’t have to wait too long for it to come. It was only after the doors were closed in front of him that he slumped against the wall and took a ragged breath_.

“Russert got to me and I was so angry. It all hit too close to home; I couldn’t let him go again. I was worried about Terrence, I was scared for him. Even though the situation was different, I saw myself in him.”

“How do you mean?” Rafael asked. He was still holding her hands, still waiting for her to give just a little indication of how things went so wrong that night.

“My father…my father raped my mother, Rafael. He was a rapist and she was one of his victims. She decided to keep the baby when she found out she was pregnant, just like Tamika did. Except it wasn’t the happy story where something good comes from the ashes of something so horrible. She tried, I guess, to get her life together but never did. 

“She drank too much and beat me up sometimes. She was verbally abusive one minute while cooing and loving the next. I loved her and also hated her so much. I promised myself that nobody would have to go through what she went through; what I went through as her daughter. 

“And here we had this little boy whose mother loves him so much and he's gone. The person who took him is the same man that violated her. I'm a child of rape, Rafael; my son is a child of rape. I wanted Pete Russert to pay for all of it.”

“You are not your mother. Maybe I should say something more profound but we’ll start with that.”

“I have her anger.” Liv said. “I have my father’s too. I found out when I was an adult who he was. His name was William Hollister, he was a family man whose depression and drinking eventually led to his committing suicide. He knew about me and followed my life through my teen years when he died. He even told his wife about me as if I was someone important to him, whom he loved.

“After I knew who he was I couldn’t even be sure what happened between him and my mother. They both drank a lot and had multiple interactions since he was a food service salesman and she worked in the Columbia cafeteria during grad school. To this day I still don’t know what I come from. All I know is it was violent and painful and it all came back to me the night we had Russert in that room. 

“My father was questioned by police about the sexual assaults. It was the late 60s, and they thought no clean cut guy could be a serial rapist. He was married and these girls were sexually liberated college coeds. They wrote it off as a he said, she said, and she had to be lying. 

“I'm so ashamed of how I acted.” Liv slipped her hands out of his and covered her face. “I hated you, for just a moment I hated you. Then I was numb for three days. I still don’t know how I feel. I just know that I hurt you and I don’t know how to make it better. I never want you to associate someone you love with that abuse again, especially me.”

“I never loved my father.” Rafael said, taking a deep breath. Even in just bringing up the word, father, he could feel the anxiety creeping around the base of his brain. “I wasn’t the kid who struggled for the approval and love of an abusive parent. I was the one who prayed every night that he would die and then begged the lord for forgiveness. My father was cruel and unbearable. He would have these moments when he wasn’t but those moments were never with me. 

“He screamed at my mother, beat me and my siblings though I surely got the brunt of it. I know what it’s like to tiptoe through your life, Liv. Standing there, fighting with you, I realized later that my fists were clenched just like they used to be when the old man started up. I was scared, I was upset, but I wasn’t going to back down because I was thinking about you. I love you, I don’t love him…I love you. I should've never put my hands on you; I was wrong.”

“You're not supposed to be the one apologizing.” She took his face in her hands. “Don’t do that. Don’t take responsibility for my very bad choice.”

“We both played a hand in what happened. We were both emotionally charged and so was the case. I don’t fear that dinner won't be warm enough and you're going to beat me black and blue. You're not a despicable human being. You're someone who’s been through the fire; you're a brave soul. You're a fractured soul. I know because sometimes I'm the same.”

“How do we…?” Liv couldn’t find the words. 

She told him in her office that night that they were through. But after he left she never went back into the interrogation room. Terrence was found around 2 a.m. at the home of Russert’s sometimes girlfriend in Queens. He was unharmed but anxious to be reunited with his mother. 

Russert told Terrence that he was his father and that his mother wanted the two of them to be together now. None of that was true. After watching Tamika see her son for the first time in 18 hours, all Liv could do was go home and cry. She held her own son even though he would've rather been asleep. How close had she come to losing Noah to Johnny D? 

That man still haunted her dreams sometimes. William Lewis still haunted her dreams, another rapist who got too many chances to hurt women. Even her mother still haunted her dreams occasionally. Liv didn’t want what happened with Rafael the other night to become the defining moment in a relationship they both fought so hard for.

“One day at a time.” He wrapped his arms around her. “We love each other tomorrow, the next day, and the day after that. We make better decisions the next time we find ourselves at odds, either in our work or personal lives. We’re open and honest about things that upset us or make us angry. We make a solemn vow to never put our hands on each other again in anger or frustration.”

“I promise, Rafi.” She held him tighter. “I promise that I will never hit you again. If I have to spend the rest of my life making it up to you then…”

“You're going to spend the rest of your life with me, Olivia. That’s all I need. It’s normal to be angry. It’s normal to have disagreements and even arguments. We just have a lot of baggage behind it.”

“I should've told you about my parents a long time ago.” She said.

“You only talked about it in bits and pieces, I figured it wasn’t little house on the prairie.”

“I need you to know that I trust you, even with the worst things. I know that you love me and I also know you respect me as a person and a police officer. Knowing about my past only makes it easier for us to find a better middle ground when things go wrong. And you were right, I was too invested, too emotional…I almost let it ruin the case. I almost let it ruin us.”

“Can you say that part again? About my being right?” Rafael managed a smile.

“No.” Liv shook her head before burying her face in his shoulder.

“Just checking. I love you, Olivia.”

“I love you too, and I'm so sorry. I wish there was some other way for me to say it, to really let you see what I'm feeling inside. You're my partner, my lover and my friend, and I don’t want to hurt you or make you feel intimidated if we have to discuss conflicting issues. I know that you always have my back, even when we don’t agree.”

“Siempre, siempre, siempre, y una década después que. (1)” Rafael said, gently kissing her lips. “I promise.”

“I promise too. Now what do we do?”

“I say we take a page out of Noah’s book and sleep. Are you sure you don’t want to have some more coffee and toast? I can heat it up for you.”

“No, I'm not hungry. I think I just need a big glass of water and to get some sleep. I'm exhausted.”

Rafael told her to go in the bedroom, he would clean up things in the living room. Olivia nodded and left him to it. She came back a few minutes later for another hug. He held her so tight, wished he could've held her even closer and never let go. They would get over this hurdle together just like they had all the others. 

Every time Rafael assumed that the biggest one had come and gone something else happened to prove him wrong. He hoped that nothing like this would ever shake their foundation again. It was going to take time for it all to sink in. He knew that Olivia was devastated by what happened. 

Rafael wasn’t exactly taking it in stride. The middle ground they stood on to balance the professional and personal had never been so shaky. He wasn’t going to let them fall through the cracks, no matter how wide. Sighing, Rafael untangled himself from her arms and kissed her lips. 

“Bedtime is to be strictly observed, Lieutenant.”

“Rarely.” Olivia managed a small smile.

“I’ll be in shortly.” He said.

When he was alone again, Rafael dumped the toast and the coffee. Dumping the scotch would've been a sin so he leaned against the counter and slowly drank. His mind was moving like a locomotive; he wasn’t sure how to slow it down enough to sleep. Digging his cell phone from the pocket of his sweats, Rafael looked at it for a moment while thinking about what to do. He scrolled the names in his contacts, found who he was looking for, and swiped his finger across the screen. It rang three times and he knew it would go to voice mail. Rafael’s first instinct was just to hang up but that would’ve caused more concern than he thought was necessary. 

‘ _You’ve reached Trevor, leave a message. If this is mom, yes I've eaten today, yes I'm wearing clean underwear, and yes I love you too_.’ **BEEP!**

“Hey. You should call me soon, it’s not an emergency just…call me tomorrow. I want to talk to someone, I need to, and I think you'll understand better than anyone else. I have so much to say that I don’t even know where to start and my mind is buzzing and I feel like I'm going to come right out of my skin and for some reason you get that about me. OK? I’ll talk to you later. I love you, Trev, bye.”

Olivia sat on the side of the bed. She wasn’t quite ready to slip between the sheets, there was still so much on her mind. Taking a long drink of water, she stared at her cell phone and decided to make the call. It had been some time but Olivia knew for a while she wanted to go back. There was nothing wrong with needing a safe place to talk. After everything that happened she knew she needed it more than ever.

‘ _This is Dr. Lindstrom’s office, I'm away from my phone at the moment. Please leave me a detailed message and I will return your call. Thank you and have a good day_.’ **BEEP!**

“Hi Doc, its Olivia Benson calling. I would really appreciate it if you could get back to because I'd like to come in and see you. Some things have happened and I need to talk to someone I trust but who also isn't going to coddle me. Thanks a lot, goodnight.”

She hung up and put her phone on the nightstand. After using the bathroom, Olivia got under the blankets and tried to clear her mind. Rafael still hadn’t come into the room. She wasn’t sure when he was or if he wanted to. Something in the pit of her stomach said that he hadn’t forgiven her for what she did. 

Olivia wasn’t sure that she deserved forgiveness no matter how bad she wanted it. He said one day at a time and it was still the first day. Pushing wasn’t a good idea. She was just going to have to let time do what it always did. 

Liv closed her eyes, snuggling into the warmth of Rafael’s expensive sheets and blankets. It wasn’t the same as his arms but it was alright. Breathing deeply, in and out, she did her best to empty her mind and fill it with the sounds of the falling rain. That never failed to lull her to sleep. The first day, which was always the most difficult, was coming to an end.

***

**Author's Note:**

> 1) For always, always, always, and a decade after that.


End file.
